all we need is love...

i know, it's pretty late in the month to post something valentine-y, but all it took was a pre-dinner with some UPS people to get me in the mood to blab about the stuff that makes the world go round.

there, seated amongst cebu business park's giant commercial edifices, in front a miniature lagoon (which we feel is home to the real loch ness monster), the group decided to direct its collective attention to the one person who is obviously too in love for comfort : april (poor soul). you see april recently found herself passionately smitten by another passionate individual, whom we shall not name for fear of further discomfort. later that afternoon, while the group was on its way to ayala, we saw the current object of april's hormonal desires. suddenly, april maneuvered her sturdy physique some 50 meters away from her crush in a span of seconds. this amazing feat of human prowess was performed in front of our group, who was just as bewildered at april's sudden action as all the other people seated in a nearby tambayan were. when april's beau was safely out of anybody's field of vision, april promptly returned to us with a biko in her hand. (the biko she bought as a result of the sudden upsurge of adrenaline, which really could cause hunger.)

what is this thing that would drive perfectly normal people into uncontrollable fits of unpredictable actions? what is this? as far as april, and all other people who has seen it close and looked it in the eyes, 'it' could only be love.

jason said that real love will last a lifetime. that since man is created in the image of God, it is inherent in him (or her) to emulate the true nature of God. and just as God loves humanity, we must pick one person to love for the rest of our lives. anut prays for the man God has set for her. she also prays that the man not think like gian, who thinks differently about the whole love business. the rest of the group (predominantly psychology students, interestingly enough) all had their own little ideas. as we delved more into the very meaning and existence of love, kids ran around us, fishes swam in the lagoon, rats scurry about in the garden, stars went out to listen.

i feel that true love doesn't have to last forever. that sometimes it ends, sometimes it ends too soon. when it does end, wait for the next one to begin. and if indeed love comes again, you don't have to make sure it's going to last forever, just make sure that it's true.

do not go on dismissing all previous loves as 'infatuation' or simple mindlessness (except when they really were!). those, for all you know, were true. they just end, and just as love comes suddenly (by fate, not by choice!), it can go.

but love, when one knows it well, is never untrue.

The Orange - Benjamin Rosenbaum

An orange ruled the world.

It was an unexpected thing, the temporary abdication of Heavenly Providence, entrusting the whole matter to a simple orange.

The orange, in a grove in Florida, humbly accepted the honor. The other oranges, the birds, and the men in their tractors wept with joy; the tractors' motors rumbled hymns of praise.

Airplane pilots passing over would circle the grove and tell their passengers, "Below us is the grove where the orange who rules the world grows on a simple branch." And the passengers would be silent with awe.

The governor of Florida declared every day a holiday. On summer afternoons the Dalai Lama would come to the grove and sit with the orange, and talk about life.

When the time came for the orange to be picked, none of the migrant workers would do it: they went on strike. The foremen wept. The other oranges swore they would turn sour. But the orange who ruled the world said, "No, my friends; it is time."

Finally a man from Chicago, with a heart as windy and cold as Lake Michigan in wintertime, was brought in. He put down his briefcase, climbed up on a ladder, and picked the orange. The birds were silent and the clouds had gone away. The orange thanked the man from Chicago.

They say that when the orange went through the national produce processing and distribution system, certain machines turned to gold, truck drivers had epiphanies, aging rural store managers called their estranged lesbian daughters on Wall Street and all was forgiven.

I bought the orange who ruled the world for 39 cents at Safeway three days ago, and for three days he sat in my fruit basket and was my teacher. Today, he told me, "it is time," and I ate him.

Now we are on our own again.

-------

i wish i could write like this. more on mr. rosenbaum.

J-O-Y

J-O-Y deep in my heart, deep, deep down in my heart.

This little song wakes me up every morning these past few days. If this song is not familiar to you, then you obviously have not taken part in the amazing institution that is the Sunday school. This song brings back memories of Sunday mornings when my mother would leave me and my brother and sister in the care of some lay minister to play games and sing quaint little songs, while Sunday sermon is delivered for the bored elder people. The same mother now finds new purpose for this song – she sings it to my four-month old nephew Wacky who, surprisingly, would only stop crying when the J-O-Y song is sung. Around six in the morning, the house would be filled with mama’s singing and Wacky’s goo’s and gaa’s – an endearing dialogue of lola and apo, of experience and innocence, of strength and vulnerability – all dedicated to the proposition of finding JOY deep in the heart.

job hunting

Job hunting

“Natawagan naka? (Did they call you yet?)” this, along with “Mantayg nakapasar ko uy (I hope I passed)”, are two of the most common lines you get to hear among my blockmates these days. yes, it is that time of the year once more when graduating compsci students of the university are recruited to work in various IT companies all over the philippines.

for some, it has always been an issue of passing the company exams and interviews for the sake of the compensation package. for others, it has been an insecure crusade of self-assurance, that i am just as competent as anyone and just as 'hire-able'. but for all, it has been that endless battle of landing in a perfect job -- whatever definition of perfection one subscribes to.

who doesn't want a great job? after slaving for personhours trying to perfect all the software projects in college, after sweating blood struggling through the dreaded calculus series, after sitting through annoyingly boring STS reports, any blockmate would undoubtedly want to be properly compensated with a great job (or any job, for that matter). as if that is not enough, there are the proud parental units whose expectations are just all too high, you can hardly see where they end from the ground. yes ma, i know i am from UP, but please stop telling people i have a job waiting for me after i graduate because, frankly, i didn't do well in the last technical interview!

a great office, a five-digit salary, perhaps a company car (why not?) -- we want them all.

why?

a story was retold by the jesuit corporate leader chris lowney in his forum "heroic leadership." he talked about a jesuit novice whose assigned job was to be a doorman. the job description for the young fellow was to open the closed door whenever someone knocks from outside, and then close it behind the person who just entered. as you may know, it is not the perfect job in the world -- the compensation package is most likely not that competitive (a favorite term of HR people worldwide), and the task is simply too monotonously numbing. imagine yourself sitting quietly beside the door, and then hearing a knock. you would then have to get up your chair, unbolt the door, make out some form of interaction with the people in a hurry to get passed you, and then bolt the door back again.

the doorman was simply unhappy with his job. that was until he started assessing why he was doing it. after thinking and praying about his intentions, he begins to start a little ritual whenever he starts to hear a knock on the door: he quietly whispers, "Here I come, Lord Jesus."

think about it. the doorman has the worst job in the world, but he has the best intentions. no doubt, he was the best darn doorman in the world!

happy job hunting guys! and remember, wherever life may take us, our worth is not measured by our paychecks. that would be too preposterously cheap.

ding dong!

jars of clay

jars of clay is coming to cebu! yay! it's in their website. they will be performing in banilad (B.R.I.G.H.T. Academy, where is this?) on feb 28. in their website, you can volunteer to post posters and distribute flyers for the band. apparently, they don't go by the laws of commercial events.



let's hope there will be no change of plans.

i have herpes zoaster

just when you thought you are living a pretty normal life, it hits you. you start scratching, your skin feels hot, you get little small blisters in random places. you start feeling something is not right.

you finally manage to overcome your well-founded fear of medical diagnoses, and visit the school physician. at the first sight of the pink developing blisters, she begins asking you standard questions she probably learned in medical school,

"when did this start?"

"what have you been doing?"

"is it painful?"

"i'm not gonna touch you, okay, it might be infectious. are you okay?"



after some last-minute O(n) searching in what seems like a database of medical symptoms all arranged in efficient hash-tables in the physician's mind, she utters the haunting line: "You have herpes zoaster."

herpes? isn't that an STD? turns out, the herpes virus has many cousins. this particular kin, zoaster, resides dormant in everyone who just had chikenpox, until stress excites them. it's perfectly normal, the good doctor informs me, except that there has been no known cure for this virus strain and there have been reported cases of people being blind after the virus infected their eyes. WHAT?! it's bad enough that i have a sex virus' relative living in me, now i'm at risk of being blind!!!

after i broke the news to my friends, they looked at me quizzically and began asking what sort of sexual activity i have participated in during the weekend. i kept repeating that i did not have an STD, and that no, i have a sex life of a ten-year old child thank you very much for asking. they dismissed my protest, and safely concluded that i might have been drinking to much to remember anything. great.

the virus is localized in my right arm. my blisters are now healing and are succesffuly developing into dry scabs. that, however, have not changed the fact that people look at me and turn the opposite direction in a heartbeat. neil took one look at my arm, and screamed, "disgusting!" i miss touching my eyes, as i have not done it for two weeks now for fear of contaminating them with the virus, thereby making me blind.

but in case i become blind, i pledge to start the Worldwide Herpes Zoaster Foundation for Unfortunate People Who Would Have Done Perfectly Well Without The Damn Buggers.

it's been a while

it really has been. the last time i did this was last christmas. i've been incredibly busy these past few days, plus the fact that we haven't had our phone reconnected yet. i'll try to write down as many things as i can, but in case i can't do that... well it's not like people are going to start killing me.